Part 5
On June 28, 1938, Sir Harry Charles Luke was appointed the Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner for the Western Pacific. He replaced Sir Arthur Richards who had been appointed the Governor of Jamaica. This week, Discovering Fiji looks at Sir Harry’s last assignments and his departure from Fiji in 1942, according to diary entries he wrote in his book From A South Seas Diary. This is the final part in this series.
ON Sunday, May 24, 1942, during Sir Harry’s last Empire Day broadcast, Ohe gave an update on the latest contributions received from the public in Fiji and Western Pacific territories to the empire’s war efforts.
Fiji raised more than $100,000 pounds and donated enough money to buy three bombers and five fighter planes and nearly 20,000 pounds to the Red Cross and St John of Jerusalem Joint Appeal and other war charities.
In Tonga, the Queen (Salote) down to the most junior clerk, gave 10 per cent of their salaries to the war funds.
The Solomon Islands, Gilbert and Ellis islands gave a sum of 14,000 pounds.
The people of Vanuatu sent over 5,000 pounds while Pitcairn Island made walking sticks for disabled soldiers in the United Kingdom.
“Thus stands the Empire aligned, dressing its ranks as the onslaught of war comes upon it.
Behind it are three and a half centuries of the expansion of the British people overseas, of decent government and fair play, of faults redeemed and bygone angers mellowed into friendships,” said Sir Harry during the radio broadcast.
“From the myriad graves that mark where courage lies, on land or under sea, or mark at least the spot where a life of honest effort ended in rest, its spirit speaks. It is a great heritage.”
On June 12, Sir Harry announced his resignation after almost four years in Fiji ‘without a break’. He had first set food on Fiji soil on September 16, 1938.
“The tempo and strain are not diminishing, and leave is in present circumstances out of the question. So I am making way for a younger man, and have today announced my resignation,” he wrote.
As soon as Sir Harry’s resignation became known, letters started flooding his office from well-wishers, saddened by his impending departure.
From the Queen of Tonga came the note: “I was very sad when I was informed of the departure of such a true friend. Please try your utmost to visit Tonga so that I and my people can thank you personally for all the love and help you have given us.”
From the Premier of Tonga the message was: “I heard if Your Excellency’s resignation with a great shock. I hope that Your Excellency’s resignation will always remember me as a friend. Please try and come over so that we can call thank you for what you have done for us.”
Sir Harry said he was impressed by a letter he received from ‘four Fijians’: “It is with sorrow in our hearts that we write to say farewell to you and to wish God-speed on your journey….Most of all, perhaps, we regret your going because we know you have loved and understood the Fijian people.
We have known that at your hands we would receive justice and understanding of our problems and thus has endeared you deeply to us.”
In summing up the content of the three letters, Sir Harry wrote “What could be more simple, more human and more kindly that these messages?”
The Fiji Times of June 13, 1942, dedicated an article to the governor’s major achievements.
“In his administration the welfare of the native and Indian races has been his constant concern and in no way has this been better expressed than in the keen personal interest he has shown in the medical training of the native and Indian medical practitioners and in the medical services in Fiji recently,” this newspaper noted.
“During his period of wartime governorship he has kept continually in touch with all sections of the community and the general response of the people is a tribute to his leadership.”
In 1942, the Civil Defence Committee was under the governor’s personal control.
He was the driving force behind the construction of bomb raid shelters and the organisation of all civil defence services.
In one week, following his retirement announcement, Sir Harry flew to Noumea and Port Vila to carry out his last duties in the Western Pacific before returning to Fiji in a flying-fortress, travelling at 10,000 feet and 200 knots.
The flying fortress was a type of Boeing B-17 class four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s by the United States.
For the first time, Sir Harry got to see Kadavu, Beqa and Vatulele from the air because he had always visited them by boat.
On July 1, Sir Harry presided for the last time at the Board of Trustees of the Fiji Museum, a position he took up in his personal capacity.
The next day, students of the Central Medical School and the Native Nurses’ School staged a farewell ceremony and concert for him.
They also gave Sir Harry an inscribed tabua each, mats and tapa.
On July 3, he attended a party given by the officers of the Fiji Defence Force and on July 5 he was given a gift of tortoise shell cigarette box by the Ladies’ Red Cross Committee.
On July 14, after visits to Makogai and Levuka, chiefs put on a ceremony at the Police barracks in Nasova and gave Sir Harry yet another finely inscribed tabua. The presentation was made by the Roko Tui Lau and Ratu Sukuna interpreted.
On July 16, he was invited to a dinner by the civil service and the next day, Indian members of Legislative Council came to say goodbye and gave him a “handsome gold-mounted stick of native workmanship”.
Since his return from Levuka, he was given daily parties and dinners at friends’ private houses and the clubs.
Saying goodbye was hectic. On July 19, Sir Harry attended, in naval uniform, the Cathedral for the Navy Remembrance Service.
On the same day, he received a message from Lord Cranborne, the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
“I should like to send you on your approaching departure from Fiji a cordial expression of appreciation of the valuable services which you have rendered to the Crown in many parts of the world since your first association with Colonial Service over thirty years ago,” Lord Cranborne said.
“I send you my warm thanks for all that you have done. All good wishes for the future.”
On July 20, Sir Harry remained in his office all morning and in the afternoon said goodbye to his office staff, Irene Milne and Miss I.M.Smith who throughout his term has given ‘devoted service’.
He thanked all the household staff at Government House who serviced him well throughout his time.
“Bala, my faithful old Hindu cook and Singh, excellent butler, major Domo and my personal attendant, gave me a tankard.”
After all goodbyes were said and farewells were bid, Sir Harry sailed to New Zealand in H.M.S. Achilles.
“After a few weeks in the Dominion, again as the guest of the Governor-General and Lady Newall, and the Government of NZ, I sailed from Christchurch for England, which I reached without mishap, in October, travelling via the Panama Canal and Halifax, Nova Scotia,” Sir Harry said towards the end of his book, From A South Seas Diary.
“Making calculations during the voyage, I found that since leaving Southampton in August, 1938, I had travelled about 55,000 miles by sea and land and 14,000 miles by air.”
According to a July 1942 article in the magazine, Pacific Islands Monthly, Sir Harry came to Suva in 1938 after a distinguished career in the Mediterranean. He had expected that the ‘quiet Pacific would provide him with some restful years’.
“If so, he was doomed to disappointment. There was the war, and there was Suva,” PIM noted.
“There is in Fiji, a very small, querulous, almost implacable group of semi-public men who seem to find joy in nagging at governors – they have made life burdensome for more than one occupant of the big house on the hill.”
The magazine described him as ‘cultured, artistic, literary and wedded to the strictest rules of colonial office tradition”.
